EFF to use SARS rogue unit findings as defence against Gordhan

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) will be using the findings of the Inspector General for Intelligence’s SARS rogue unit report in its defence against Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s hate speech case. This after the Equality Court on Monday dismissed an application by Gordhan for the report to be removed from court papers filed by the party.

BREAKING NEWS: EFF has just won against Pravin Gordhan at the Equality Court in his challenge to have the Rogue Unit Report of the Inspector General removed from the case; IGI report will be included. Judge Southerland has dismissed Gordhan’s Application. Full Statement to follow pic.twitter.com/1MG6IQ9w7y

— Mbuyiseni Ndlozi (@MbuyiseniNdlozi) September 30, 2019

EFF Welcomes The High Court’s Dismissal of Pravin Gordhan’s Application To Strike Out The IGI Rogue Unit Report From Court Proceedings. pic.twitter.com/lPmxBfLPie

— Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) September 30, 2019

The case emanates from utterances made by EFF leader Julius Malema in November 2018 outside the State Capture Commission in which he, amongst other things, accused Gordhan of being corrupt and being a stooge of white monopoly capital.

The IGI report allegedly supports the notion of the existence of the so-called “rogue unit” at the time when Gordhan was SARS Commissioner, which conducted illegal surveillance on prominent politicians and business people.

EFF Spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi says the report speaks on how the rogue unit targeted Malema under Gordhan’s directions.

“The rogue unit report speaks about the abuse of power talks about how the activities of the rogue unit were targeted against Malema under the direction of Pravin Gordhan. And this is part of the important defence in the main application that the CIC (Malema) will be relying on to explain his utterance outside the Zondo Commission where Mr Gordhan said he was aggrieved.”